Miko's Pain
by Enchanted Kagome
Summary: Kikyou reflects on her life and what she is doing now--walking the earth...a dead among the living. The Shikon no Tama is finally complete and she comes to a final decision about her relationship with Inu-Yasha after a talk with Kagome, who begins to real


** Miko's Pain**

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by: Enchanted Kagome

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Summary:

_Kikyou reflects on her life and what she is doing now--walking the earth...a dead among the living. The Shikon no Tama is finally complete and she comes to a final decision about her relationship with Inu-Yasha after a talk with Kagome, who begins to realize the miko's hidden pain. Still a Kag/Inu fanfic. [One Shot] Please Review! Told from Kikyou's point of view._

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**Dedication:**

To my friend Ally, who is a die-hard Kikyou fan. (Just for the record...I'm not a huge Kikyou fan...in fact I just feel sorry for her, but she is **not** to step into Inu and Kag's RELATIONSHIP! Hear that Ally?)

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I feel that reincarnation of mine is near again. It seems that I can never part from memories I would rather not have.

All I ever wanted to do, alive--and now dead--was to live like a regular person...to know myself.

InuYasha...he is the reason why I'm living...my hate for him is the only part of my soul I retained.

Naraku had once asked, why our love turned so easily to hate.

That's because there never was love, not the kind he thought. I knew it...dieing...taking the Shikon no Tama with me--in that moment, I knew. There had not been love. InuYasha is starting to understand too, or so I believe.

I can see it in his eyes, the way they gaze at me. He isn't seeing me...he's seeing my reincarnation. He tries hard not to...he tries hard to stay true to his previous "love", but he can't. He never loved me in that way. His guilt is blinding him. He feels responsible for loving me.

I turned around to find my reincarnation gazing at me.

"Kikyou..." she said.

"Yes?"

"Are you still going to drag InuYasha down to Hell?" she asked softly.

"What makes you think I would've changed my mind?" I replied coldly.

"I just thought that...you might decide not to. He wasn't the one who killed you," she said.

I shook my head. She is naive--innocent. She thinks that life is plainly black and white. But it's not.

"Do you think I care about that? As a miko and a guardian of the Shikon no Tama that hangs around your neck, I am above petty things such as that. Do you think that Naraku really matters to me?" I watched her brows furrow in confusion. "Do you think that I care that he ended my life? Do you think, that, had he come in his own form, I would've cared about dieing?"

She remained silent.

"No. I wouldn't," I answered for her.

"But, if you really love InuYasha, you should let him go," she whispered.

"Love him? How could **I** possibly love him? How could I possibly love anyone?" I asked her, my voice coated with bitterness. I saw her look up with surprise. "To love someone, you have know yourself."

"But...who wouldn't know themselves." She was confused. How easily this reincarnation of mine is confused! No wonder Kaede said we were so different.

"Me...InuYasha. People respect me. They think they know me...but how could they?" I smiled ruefully. "When I don't even know myself."

"But you love InuYasha and he loves you..." she said uncertainly.

"You are naive. InuYasha doesn't truly love me. He loves you. His love for me is but guilt. I never held such a love for him, and I knew it."

"Then why did his 'betrayal' hurt so much," she questioned.

"Because he was the only person who shared my loneliness. We both wanted nothing more than a regular life where we could be treated equally. He--not despised. and I--not a miko. He was the only person who knew...understood me, when I didn't. I, in turn, saw his soul--something too painful for him to face. That's why it hurt so much," I said, dropping my voice to a whisper. "The only person I trusted...the only one who cared for me, as a person, not a miko, not as the guardian of the Shikon no Tama...betrayed me. He was the only one who understood, yet he betrayed me. He saw my pain and loneliness--but they were worth nothing to him. He saw and ignored them. But even worse, he pretended to care. That's why."

"But he **cares**," she replied.

"Care, as a brother might for his sister and vice versa. He doesn't understand," I replied. "Not yet. I understood that this was the closest thing we had to the love of lovers...and, we, never knowing that kind of love, mistook one for the other. Our friendship mistaken for love. I understood the day I died. Had I loved him...I would've never been able to seal him. The mind follows the heart...just as you can never harm him even if he betrayed you..."

"But...you are still going to drag him to Hell...can't you just do a nice deed and let him live?"

"Do a nice deed? What has this world done for me? I was born into this world--a miko. Many consider it a gift, but only mikos, such as me, can truly understand it. It's nothing but a curse. And fate has never consented to leave **me** alone. I just wanted to lead a regular life, but my past, present and...future," I gazed at her, "cannot allow me. The flow of time will not allow the dead to walk in peace among the living..."

I took in her piercing gaze.

"What do you want me to do? I had but one wish in life, and fate would not allow it. Why should I let you take away the only compensation fate had to offer me?" I asked.

"Will you let InuYasha if...you are given a chance...to fulfill your wish?" her voice quivered a bit, as though to reflect indecision and a bit of...fear.

"What do you mean?" I replied curiously.

"If...you get your soul back...you can live again...and you don't have to...drag him into Hell," she said softly. I sensed InuYasha closeby, but saw no harm in letting him hear this.

"But you have my soul..." I replied, feeling as though I'm amusing a child.

"But you can get it back...the Shikon no Tama is complete. You can wish for it back," she replied.

"But, you'll die," I said, smiling at her nonsense.

"Exactly, but InuYasha will live."

The full force of her implied meaning hit me. She meant to die in place of InuYasha...she meant to give me another compensation for losing InuYasha to fate. But would I do that? Would I truly fulfill my wish by living of a borrowed soul? Even if it was once mine, it is now hers. Will I live as carefree and happily as I wanted to knowing that InuYasha, who still thinks he loves me, will realize the truth and perhaps...hate me? As I did years ago? Will I live at the expense of having my only friend in life hate me?

"Please?" she begged quietly, "I'm willing."

I looked at her. I see the resemblance. She's strong...deep down, she is as strong as me, in a different way. I carried on...despite the fact I lived a lonely life. I carried on living--in hopes that the Shikon no Tama will be purified and I can live a regular life. She is willing to give up her life to save her love. She is willing to brave Hell in his stead.

I laughed ruefully. "I never meant for things to turn out this way. Fate is against me."

"You mean you won't?" she asked.

"Even if I did, I won't live happily knowing what I've caused in trade," I replied.

"You won't give up InuYasha?"

"Are you really willing to trade your soul? You know that you'll die...you'll never get to see InuYasha again, living or dead," I said in a serious tone.

"I know...but at least he'll be happy," she said.

I saw a flicker of red among the bushes. InuYasha's heard.

"It doesn't work that way. He'll realize that he truly loves you...he'll try to follow you. But he can't, because you've given up your soul..."

"But what else can I do?" she asked desperately.

I looked at her...her tears glistening in the moonlight. I decided...dying wasn't that painful. And, to die in the face of something beautiful, something like love, was better than dying in bitterness 50 years ago.

"For me to give into Fate, and for you to pray for me," I replied, smiling softly, and holding back the tears I never got to shed in life and in death.

"What? What do you mean--"

"Kikyou! What are you doing?"

I smiled a goodbye to InuYasha...the only friend and the only person who knew me.

"We can't cheat fate," I replied, as the ground under me shock and opened up to reveal the gates of Hell.

"No! Kikyou! Wait!" I heard the voice of my reincarnation in the background.

"Kagome! Don't go near! You'll be sucked in! Kikyou! Kikyou!" I heard InuYasha's desperate voice in the background. I knew that I had to keep going...now or never.

I whispered my final goodbye to this world, to this life. I can only wish that I will live as a normal person if my small piece of a soul is reincarnated...

... normal life...

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"InuYasha?" Kagome asked gently...

"I heard her. She never knew herself...she just wanted a normal life..."

"Maybe I should've given her my soul," Kagome whispered softly to herself, looking at InuYasha's grouched back.

"NO!" He whirled around. "No! You shouldn't!"

"She would've LIVED!"

"But **you** would've died!"

"What is the Shikon no Tama good for if it can't help people who are suffering?" Kagome shouted in desperation, before her own words hit her.

"The Shikon no Tama..." she whispered.

"We can't wish her back into the living again...she wouldn't want that," InuYasha cautioned.

"But we can wish that she can finally rest in peace and be reincarnated as a normal person," Kagome replied softly.

InuYasha looked at her.

He nodded.

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Did **anyone** actually like that? Please review!

Thanks!

Ja ne, minna-san!

I promise to update Cupid's Mistake and all my other ones SOON!


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